


Talk to Me

by Acid



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Awkward Romance, Azkaban, Banter, Canon Divergence - Post-Hogwarts, Cross-Generation Relationship, Drama & Romance, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Time Blow Jobs, Flying, Freedom, HP Cross Gen Fest 2020, Healing, M/M, May/December Relationship, Meditation, Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, POV Severus Snape, Psychological Trauma, Recovery, Wordcount: 10.000-30.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:02:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25413610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acid/pseuds/Acid
Summary: Sentenced to serve his time in Azkaban after the Battle of Hogwarts, Snape is startled out of his depression by the inevitable fights during Potter's frequent visits. What will he say to the man when he is free to walk out into the Wizarding World and speak his mind?
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape
Comments: 23
Kudos: 337
Collections: HP Cross Gen Fest 2020





	Talk to Me

**Author's Note:**

> This story is written for the following wonder of a prompt:
> 
> Despite a reduced sentence, Snape ends up in Azkaban. Harry goes to see him, and they spend the whole time shouting at each other. Harry starts visiting regularly once he figures out that Snape uses their shouting matches to keep his spirits up. And he's there the day Snape is finally released. _Likes:_ Sparks flying (maybe literally!), mutual sarcasm, mutual revelations, Snape cracking under pressure. _Dislikes:_ character death.
> 
> Thank you for this spark of an idea and I hope you will enjoy what this tale ended up being, prompt-giver.
> 
> Thank you, also, to [Hippocrates460](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hippocrates460/pseuds/hippocrates460) for your help and beta-reading. This story would not have been ready by the deadline if it wasn't for you.

* * *

I know not whether Laws be right,  
Or whether Laws be wrong;  
All that we know who lie in gaol  
Is that the wall is strong;  
And that each day is like a year,  
A year whose days are long.

[ _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ballad_of_Reading_Gaol) by Oscar Wilde

* * *

"The jury has come to an agreement on the sentencing of the known Death Eater and the confessed murderer of Albus Dumbledore."

The resulting silence in the courtroom is like a hiss of a serpent, waiting to strike, a teetering cauldron about to drench a hapless twit of a student with acid, the gathering storm right before the lightning and the Morsmordre splits the sky into two. There is no comfort in this kind of silence. Not for the likes of Snape. Not here. Not ever.

Snape's judge left Hogwarts the year of Snape's Sorting: Edna Hawksworth, a Ravenclaw witch, the best of her class. Bill Winters, the prosecutor, a Slytherin lad, was only a few years behind her. An earnest man, if not the brightest of students, shouldn't have been sorted the way he did, but Snape has done all he could for him. Winters made it out of Hogwarts with five N.E.W.T.s.

"Prisoner XY-5517, for the crimes committed by you against the Wizarding World, despite your continued cooperation," Judge Hawksworth's dry, Sonorus-enhanced voice rings out, drowning Snape's effort to calm himself by retreating into his memories of them both as students, a frizzy-haired Chaser for the Ravenclaw team and a stuttering boy in the hallways, afraid to look Snape the new Potions Instructor in the eye. "I hereby sentence you to seven years and six months in Azkaban Prison, to be released in the month of March, the year 2006 -"

"NO! Stop! You can't! How is this justi-"

"Silence, Mr Potter! Prisoner XY-5517, you may petition the court for parole two years from now, on September 3..." the noise in his ears drowns out the rest of the words spoken.

Her gavel strikes against hard, polished wood, like the crack of distant thunder, and as the courtroom explodes with noise, Severus Snape remains unbowed, accepting his fate as a string of letters and numbers, no longer given the courtesy to carry the name he was given at birth. As Hawksworth sets down her gavel, Winters raises his wand and Snape chokes with the sensation of something tightening around his neck like a noose. His skin crawls and burns with six points of magical contact: must be the dark string of sigils tattooed across his neck settling, spreading, imprinting.

His number. His Mark. His fate. 

It stretches over the wide patch of scar tissue on the side below his jaw. With that last spell spoken by Winters, the temporary tattoo burns into his skin and settles, as permanent now as the scar over his neck and shoulder. The pain dulls yet Snape's shackled hands still grip the wooden armrests. He can't bring himself to let go.

He tastes copper. The room swims. And then, everything is sour. Everything is white.

_Breathe._

_How bad is this? I'm not injured. What's my next move? Nothing. Not a thing._ He'll have no chance at parole in 2000. No Death Eater was ever considered for an early release. So, seven years and six months. _So be it._

Two. Five-and-a-half. How can numbers this small be so overwhelming in their magnitude? Seven years and six months. An impossible feat. It's impossible to survive that long in Azkaban, not with the exposure to the Dementors, even with a functional Patronus, and remain sane. This is a death sentence. And even if he survives, whoever re-emerges at the end of the journey can not be Severus Snape. 

_This is it._

Snape tells himself not to look and yet he turns his head, not to the shouting Harry Potter, but to the left.

In the courtroom, his mother's hold tightens over her ever-present handbag. Her face is deathly pale. Long greying strands spill over her eyes. He never expected her to come to the trial much less stay for the sentencing. Her stare chills him to the core. _"I told you, Severus. I said it all along. That blasted Mark will be the death of you!"_

He commits the sight of her to memory, the best he can, in case this is the last time he sees her alive. It's anyone's guess whether he will. He doesn't know when he will speak to anyone again.

_He's done for. But he's been a dead man walking all his life. He knows it all too well._

_It's over._

**Eleven Months Later**

"Ah!" said he, "I hear a human voice." Edmond had not heard any one speak save his jailer for four or five years; and a jailer is not a man to a prisoner — he is a living door added to his door of oak, a barrier of flesh and blood added to his barriers of iron.

[ _The Count of Monte-Cristo_](https://www.google.com/books/edition/THE_COUNT_OF_MONTE_CRISTO/ivcO_YaLr74C?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=Ah!%22%20said%20he,%20%22I%20hear%20a%20human%20voice) by Alexandre Dumas

* * *

To Snape's surprise, there are no Dementors in Azkaban, not this time around. Which means he is not dead yet. It means his sanity remains in his hands. And yet, the dull fog of depression that permeates the isolated floors of the massive tower is unchanged since his brief stay here in his youth, before Dumbledore intervened on his behalf. His magic is dampened to less than a spark by the prison wards. His future tomb might as well be a cage made of granite, with a smattering of vomit-stained straw. ("And to the left is XY-5517, Classification XXXXX, do not interact except for the designated feeding hours, keep under constant observation.") The smoke from the oil lamps makes his eyes sting. Or is it not the smoke at all, but the despair at the present situation, sinking in at last.

Snape stirs in the dark and scratches at his matted beard.

His wound scarred over and the scars thickened over time as he turned his neck far too often in the ministry holding cells. They itch and hurt during foul weather. Except for the numb spot - the small patch where the sigils cut into them: XY-5517. They snapped a picture of Snape while it was still fresh on his clean-shaven neck the first day he arrived here. After a few weeks, it was all but covered by his growing beard until the squinting guards made him recite the numbers instead of showing them. Not that it matters, there are no mirrors here and besides, Snape knows his case number by heart. He need not see the raised sigils; he has heard them far too many times for his comfort.

He has learned to recite his identifying number daily, after the slam of the heavy oak door, the banging of the fist against the bars, to receive his meals through the slot on the floor. He had gone hungry for three days once, refusing their requests and pretending to forget... he isn't willing to risk angering the guards any more after that.

Gruel. Meat on Sundays. An empty clay mug, too thick-walled to collect the trickle of brackish water dripping through the miniature hole in the ceiling.

He marks the passing days by the invasion of the cleaning spell cast through the door now and then. The breathless violation of being trapped in a magical snare for three seconds at a time. He marks each week by the change in meals every seventh day. He thinks the introduction of meat to the diet is regular but he doesn't trust the guards to be consistent. They've been known to mess with the prisoners' perception of time to get what they need out of them. Fortunately, they need nothing from Snape, not anymore. For the most part, he is left alone. The days pass one after another, an endless stream of them, without proper count or care for weeks on end. There are a few hours during the day now when he can contain his full-body shiver and warm his hands with his breath, as he could never before.

The seasons must have turned.

How does one survive captivity? Because this is what it is, isn't it? He feels more beast than human here: a creature locked up and forgotten, reduced to convey its agony in a scream that, whether let out or directed inwards, never quite ends until it's all over. He thinks of another beast of his past, hidden away under the Whomping Willow at the school grounds of his youth. He pictures that monster of a man and then he pictures the man long dead, once striding through the Hogwarts halls with nothing but scars to mark his transformations. This place is all granite and metal, no tree roots, no dirt, not a single cobweb in sight. Somehow, the knowledge that Snape's oldest and worst nightmare is not this cell, not yet, makes his current situation easier to breathe through. He counts his breaths and then carries on, always one breath at a time. There are coping mechanisms to such prolonged imprisonment and Snape knows them all. He repeats his own name in his head, fighting the dehumanisation of a number etched on his body. He traces his signature on the wall with his finger. His nail catches on the sharp edge of the stone and breaks, but Snape continues until his fingertip is smoothed out from this one repetitive movement: a reminder to himself. _I still exist._

At first, he counted the days by marking them on the granite with soot, but that count quickly turns unreliable, smudged beyond recognition. It's a wall of solid black, made worse by all the smeared failures to keep track of his existence. He sits against it and presses his forehead into the solid block of stone. _What is today? Tuesday? Saturday?_ He does not know. The guards' visits are far too irregular. He cannot even tell when one day stops, and the other begins.

The slabs of granite that serve as the walls of his cage are too smooth and too hard to carve into. Not that he has anything to use as an instrument. He refuses to claw at the walls.

Instead, he recalls the contents of his library and his own private notes. Healing salves. Scar-mending Serum: freshly gathered dittany, seven full-grown plants... the powder of a viper's flesh, three and a half drams... bruisewort leaves, five ounces... mix in the dittany paste and the bruisewort first, stirring twelve times clockwise until the paste is even in colour and texture. Afterwards, just as during the harvest, avoid sunlight exposure at all costs. The viper's flesh must be added at the last stage, and it is vitally important to keep the powder cool...

 _Oh, what does it matter?_ The serum is just words now, useless and devoid of healing. He'll never brew again. The thickening stretch of a scar on his neck is the only true testament to his reality.

Some days he sits back against the chilled, hard rock, and retreats into the passageways of his own mind, while he still has control over it, into the place his jailers cannot follow. He still has magic there, he still has his spells and his knowledge. He is free to roam amid his memories of the Hogwarts grounds, the ingredient hunts in the Forbidden Forest, the coveted flights through the midnight sky over the towers and the rooftops. His mind travels from Cokeworth to London, with all its bookshops and its traffic. Then he retreats into his memories of the Hogsmeade walks, and the round-bottomed polished copper and cast iron in the Ceridwen's Cauldrons. On and on still, to the playground of his childhood memories, where he and Lily spent summers talking to one another. To the two-up-two-down house at the end of the road by the dirty river, and the damp, cluttered backyard filled with various pots and covered with grime.

It's all gone now, it may as well not exist at all, but this world is easier to bear than reality.

Time passes, far too slow and uniform. The first thing he finds abandoned to the daily lethargy of inaction is exercise. He used to pace around in circles daily, striding from one corner of his cell and into the other. He used to recite Potions Quarterly articles in his head. He tried a shaving spell once, just to come up short, realising that the fading spark of magic inside him will never be enough for a single Lumos. He tried to mark up his walls with soot until they're black down to the last stone. While he used to retreat into his memories before, lately he disconnects from his reality altogether, letting the sensation of watching his thoughts go by wash over him like a river current (set your thoughts aside on the floating debris, watch it float away.) The stupor, the odd hibernation of being a silent observer to his situation gets him through the winter. He calls the endless string of shivering cycles of broken-up sleep and then watching the icy stalagmite grow in the far corner by his water supply 'winter' but nature does not exist in Azkaban, it only made its mark as an ache reaching deep down to his bones.

But now, the ice has melted. Although all he can bring himself to do is sink into the mattress of straw and hemp and stay there for days at a time, under the thin scrap of wool pulled over his thin prison robe. It feels he's spent weeks here already, a sentient pile of rubbish with the occasional needs of someone still living. Food, water. Sleep. Still in possession of bones and flesh and skin. Still burdened by all five senses through it all.

His eyesight can only get him so far in the dark. His hearing is of better use. 

He uses it to monitor the guards. He knows the current crew's voices by heart. They rotate now and then. The next rotation should be in two weeks.

One day, he is stumped by an unfamiliar sound: the voice that comes through around the corner from his cell is new, but it shouldn't be. Has he lost track of time again?

Someone coughs and a series of cautious steps sound from down the corridor. When they bring Snape his meals, they come from the opposite direction.

Which makes this encounter... unusual.

Snape stirs. It deserves some energy spent investigating. 

"Oi, hold up. This way?"

"There. Go on."

The first voice is so familiar. The last time Snape heard it, he was outside this cage, a lifetime ago, in another universe. He heard it in the courtroom, on the day of his verdict.

_'NO! Stop! You can't! How is this justice?'_

It can't be.

It _is_.

With the monumental effort to fight the lethargy that has sunk into his weary bones, Snape lifts his head, and sure enough, there he stands: Harry Potter, just outside his cell, looking in. 

* * *

Harry Potter is wide-eyed and wide-shouldered, looking like he just stepped off a magazine cover and into Snape's personal hell. He does not belong here any more than any human invader still alive in this world.

Snape unclenches his hands, and slowly, painfully as an Inferius stirring from his century-old slumber, with any force of magic, of life, that remains, wills himself to stand up and face the inevitable.

"... is that? Oh god, that _is_. _Snape!_ Are you - what happened to you?"

He hasn't been called 'Snape' in so long, it's jarring to hear it spoken. His ears fill with the nostalgia-inducing sound and the prisoner once known as Severus Snape to the world draws a breath. His voice hoarse from disuse, he spits out a single word.

"Out."

"Snape?" The delicate ungloved fingers encircle the bars of his cage, the same bars that withstood the winter elements. It's the same metal, rusted and ruddy, that Snape knows the exact weight and taste of. They've weathered winter together, he and these metal rods planted into the rock like spiked rose cuttings. They'll bloom with Snape's own blood against them if his jailers feel like spilling it (again). They'll weather many winters beyond human survival, and these metal spikes will remain here long after Snape is gone. He's never leaving this cell. He knows it. Potter knows it too. These bars are witnessing the becoming of a corpse, that is all they're here for. (The only reason Snape didn't stop eating is that he knows the gruel will be forced down his throat, one way or another. Snape hates himself for being a survivor against all odds, for having the gall to claw himself out of the dirt and the ashes, no matter what, because that's his nature. Men like him shouldn't be alive. And yet, here's Potter, observing his existence and then daring to speak.) 

"They wouldn't let me see you. Are you alright? Do you need anything?"  
  


The fussing, the emotion stir something unfamiliar in Snape's soul. Anger. Sorrow. Grief? The boy with his Gryffindor grace has waded into a maelstrom, poked a hurricane with a stick. Best keep him out of all that. "Leave me! Go."

"What? You can't be serious! Snape! Talk to me. SNAPE!"

A shout like that ought to wake the dead, but Snape wishes he were a different sort of corpse.

"I have nothing to say to you." The boy dared to give him hope once, of forgiveness, of absolution. Of a future ahead that wasn't hell! Harry Potter and all that bloody enthusiasm: The Boy Who Lived, the Man Who Defeated Voldemort, intervenes in a murderer's case. That vigorous, foolish defence on Snape's behalf had sounded so sincere, truthful enough to ward off the scrutiny of Snape's personal hell. Of his mind, where Snape is his own judge, jury, and executioner.

 _Your defence of me made me wonder if I have a chance after all. To be given false hope just to see it taken away, that is the ultimate torture._ _I've learned my lesson the hard way._ "Get. Out."

The creak of the guard's boots is unmistakable. "Oi, you heard the prisoner, Potter. Looks like your time is up."

"What? You can't be serious! It hasn't even been five minutes!"

"The Warden sets the rules, not me. If the murdering scum refused a visit, that's his trouble."

"Wait! Hold on. Please."

"I'm doing you a favour, man. If you end up on the Warden's blacklist on your first day here, kiss goodbye to your career, I mean it. Never saw anyone on that list make it back, or land a promotion since. Just ask Stephens when you're back at the Ministry what it had cost him. And all he did was try to see his cousin."

With a sign, Potter complies, and it is so odd to witness him yielding to pressure. "Fine. But I'll be back. Count on it!" He rushes out swiftly as if he too is a figment of Snape's ample imagination.

It was a mistake to chase Potter away. Now there's only silence and solitude. The cast-iron bars keep none of the heat from Potter's fingers as Snape reaches for them later.

In this world-forsaken island where no warmth is to be found, Snape still dares to try to hoard the precious remains of it. He ought to know better by now. _Doesn't matter in the long run._ The madness of perpetual solitude forgives many sins.

* * *

By the time Potter returns the next week, Snape has been given a water bowl for washing up and a fresh cup for drinking. His old one was smashed by a stray spell, filling his cell with clay dust for hours and invading his chest with the longing for the scent of fresh dirt after the rain. A half-a-day later, he can still smell it. Another blanket was thrust between the cell bars, patchy but clean. A pattern of favours. Did Potter shame the guards into reluctant civility?

Snape has composed entire tirades in his head of what he wishes to say to the man. The insults he truly wants to scream at Potter for the sheer pleasure of watching him cower. Instead, they remain unvoiced, shouted out only into the void of his mind. (He'll never give the guards the satisfaction of watching yet another prisoner's sanity draining away phrase after mumbled phrase.)

"Um, hi, Professor."

But then again, Potter doesn't deserve the courtesy of words. At least this much, Snape is capable of wielding control over. (Snape is also a damned fool for trusting Potter in the first place...)

"Um, listen, so, I think I can get you out."

"You? Not even Potter... oh," Snape throws his head against the stonework and releases an abrupt croak of laughter. It must look as terrifying as it sounds. No matter. "You finally realised it, didn't you, you've learned by now that the entire world does not revolve around the Golden Boy! Have you run out of admirers then? You just had to come all the way here to find more fools eager to snivel in the presence of greatness... well, you've come to the wrong place." He'd prefer Potter gloating, taunting him, anything but this unmanageable eagerness to help the unmendable when none of the King's horses and none of King's men could put him back together in this lifetime or the next. "Spare me your delusions. Leave."

"M' not going anywhere," Potter says, the stubborn sod. "What have you got to lose, anyway? Time?"

 _Time._ The dry cackle of the universe's ultimate irony must be what wracks Snape's chest with a choked back sob. He never thought himself capable of laughing at one of Potter's inane jokes, and he isn't about to start now.

"If you're here to clear your conscience, you're in the wrong place. You owe me nothing." _Why is Potter here? That's the question, isn't it? Why does Potter do anything? He is a bloody nuisance of a boy._ "So say what you need to and then go."

The cells grow quiet. The darkness settles in as the oil lamps spit and crackle in the brief pause between them. "Well, if you insist... I had been meaning to ask you. When you said to look at you, at the Shrieking Shack, did you want to see my mum instead?"

A lifetime ago, it seems, Snape had collapsed on the dusty floorboards, unable to stop the blood gushing out of his neck. He had asked Potter one small courtesy, a favour, after a lifetime of unvoiced grief: to look at him. At _him._ To be seen. It was a foolish request, for what may have been the last one. Was it the need for some company in death? For absolution? For a witness to the end of all things? Death comes once in a lifetime... Is that what Potter is after now, one last unsettled conversation before he cannot ask anything of Snape ever again.

"What if I was?"  
  
"That's bloody selfish! I mean, I am not her. I wish I could be but I'm not! And I'm bloody tired of people thinking I'm my parents! I'm my own man."

"Oh?" _Selfish? I've sacrificed everything to see you succeed, boy! Enough. I must stay calm. He won't understand, people like him never do. There is one thing his kind does understand, and always will... It's futile to try anything but pointing out the obvious._ "Indeed." Snape can't help but allow his lip to curl before delivering a verdict after a long, significant pause. 

" _Just_ like your father."

Potter's reaction, the resulting groan, is worth the wasted energy for their conversation. Worth all of it.

Snape spends the next week planning further insults to throw against his visitor. He never did have to search far for them. Not in Potter's presence, anyway, even if imaginary.

* * *

Potter draws a deep breath for his next tirade. It's a pattern by now. He comes to visit on Sundays (the only way Snape can be certain it is a Sunday, because why would Potter of all people lie about something as important as his schedule?) He is more reliable than the change in meals the guards serve. Snape studies his telltale quirks, the twitch of the eye betraying annoyance, the clenched fists betraying anger. Those haven't changed since Potter was a student.

"Can you blame us for hating you? You were bloody brutal to Ron. To Hermione! Oh, you were a monster around Hermione, especially! Just 'cause she wanted to learn. Well, news for you, but no children learn from being bullied by a teacher. Just 'cause my dad was a bastard, doesn't mean -"

 _Granger, that presumptuous know-it-all. Or is it Weasley now? Does it matter?_ "Do not presume your father had any effect on my ability to teach. Granted, teaching sense to a handful of imbeciles proves beyond even the most skilled -"

"Skilled? Ha, you were the worst. The only way I could ever learn is to ignore everything that came out of your mouth and instead read what you'd written in -"

"As any diligent student should have been doing from the start, hm?"

"No one owes diligence to a sadist in the classroom, Professor. No one! All it does is breed more scared and angry kids growing up. You of all people should have understood. You were supposed to be in charge. How could you?"

"Potter. So what if I did? Some of us don't learn compassion at home, and then the only language children know is -"

"Bullying?"

"Yes. And I offered a... milder alternative."

"How magnanimous of you."

"Big words, Potter. When you are a Hogwarts teacher, you may -"

"I thought about it, you know."

Snape raises his eyebrow. _Interesting._ "Oh?" 

"It's too late now." Potter runs the hand through the unruly mop of his hair. "Aurors don't quit."

Snape barely contains his sneer at that. Potter is always here in his civilian clothes. He's never been posted to guard Snape. But what if he will be, one day? It's just a matter of time. The Auror rotation is frequent enough, and Snape's sentence is long enough to make it highly likely to happen. It's not too bold of Snape to assume that one of these days he and Potter will find themselves on the opposite sides of the cell doors with Potter serving him gruel (has it been spat into?) and Potter renewing the layers upon layers of Snape's personal magic-dampening wards every other Tuesday, checking the locks, casting the Cleaning and the occasional Shearing Charm on Snape in a smug and invasive manner. It's the same spells that farmhands use on their livestock, and the Aurors are far too fond of shouting out the spells in the early hours of the morning to remind the prisoners of their place in life.

Snape thinks of Potter becoming one of the faceless, uniformed brutes he studies in his spare time, all caricatures of students he once had known and taught. Hardly living. Will Potter's humanity fade someday to where he'll be just another body standing in between Snape and the unreachable freedom? Will he dispense daily doses of commonplace torture in the casual way Dumbledore doled out lemon sherberts to the youth in his care? 

"Congratulations on your blossoming career. A perfect fit for a witless imbecile."

Potter makes a face. "Don't have to put it like that, you know."

"That's what makes it particularly thoughtful on my behalf. You'll do well to appreciate it."

"Ha-ha. I... thought of it. Once."

"What precisely? Belated appreciation?"

"Quitting." Potter sighs and his voice grows sombre. "Right after your sentencing. It was bloody unfair." He runs his hand over his face, pushing his glasses until they rest unevenly over his forehead with the faded scar. "Oh, what am I saying? I'm a complete idiot. Sorry, Professor," — Snape curls his lip over Potter's shameless ease using a title Snape will never hold again — "you know how unfair it all is better than any of us! But then again, nothing is. Might as well stay and start fixing what I've got. Right here. Under my nose."

Snape scowls, but even scowling is no use. "I'd rather not talk about my sentence today." _What year is it, anyway?_ It's an acceptably pain-free day, relatively quiet. His scar is numb and the ache in his bones is a steady, sleeping discomfort rather than a shooting pain, which means the rainy season is all but over. There's no reason to pour salt on an old wound.

He isn't leaving this place soon. But with Potter's visits, someone to sneer at once in a while, an insult or two to mark the passing of time, it is not as unbearable of an existence.

* * *

Potter misses an occasional Sunday visit, but he is there more often than not. He usually warns Snape beforehand about his future absences, more diligent than he ever was as a student.

One fateful Sunday, Potter is not there. 

At first, Snape wonders whether he's off on his count of days and today is Saturday, but the guard serves him stew and the watery drink filling his cup must be cider.

A few hours pass. The cluster of the empty cells that Snape's world has been reduced to is suddenly far too silent for a Sunday. He's out of his element here, used to the familiarity of Hogwarts dungeons, to the Muggle squalor of Cokeworth. This is a wizarding tower in the middle of the sea, its foundations laid and fortified by magic. _There's nothing natural about it. Who would want to come here twice, if they didn't have to stay?_

_Was Potter delayed with his friends or his work? Did he have to re-request his permission to be here and the paper-pushers at the Ministry didn't get to the request in time? Or perhaps it is the obvious explanation: Potter grew tired of me at last and gave up. Took him long enough._

A hooded guard enters the corridor. In the span of a breath, held back, Snape wonders if that's Potter, who has been assigned his rounds in Azkaban at last, poor sod. The figure is of a similar height and build, and in the dark is a close resemblance, until the guard's face comes under the light. For a brief second Snape's heart jumps as he visualises all humanity draining from Potter's expressive face, accented only by the Ministry-assigned dark-grey and the casual cruelty of an average guard. Soulless, like a Dementor.

Wouldn't that be a fitting ending?

But the guard is not Potter. He is fresh blood, young and ruddy-cheeked. He wears no glasses and promises no relief for Snape's frayed nerves with angry banter. Snape doubts he'll ever see Potter again.

"Oi, you're Snape, right? 'Course you are. Couldn't see under all that dirt." The guard approaches and flips the newspaper in his hands open past the headlines. 

Snape squints. The page that ends up open is the wedding announcements. Followed by the obituaries section. 

"Lookit that." The guard scowls and spits in the corner. "One less Snape in the world. Good riddance!"

Snape's heart drops. _Snape. Wizarding paper. Mum! No, not her. Not like this._ Stiff-spined, he carries himself to the bars of the cage and extends his arm. He hates to plead. He has to see. He has to know. 

The guard appears to comply with his request at first, taking two steps forward, but then drops the requested newspaper sheet on the ground, just a few steps out of reach. The obituaries page flutters down onto the stone floor like a shroud and then a heavy boot descends, rubbing it into the dirt until all ink is smeared with mud, unreadable.

"Ahh, why so glum? Got any more family left, traitor? Or are you the last of 'em?"

"No more," Snape croaks. It's the truth. _There is nothing left._

"Pity, I'd've loved to show you another. Well, just the look on your face right then. Evenings here are the worst, dull as dishwater. At least you sorry lot put on a decent show now and then. When prodded. Makes it all the less boring."

 _He wasn’t ever going to show me._ The unavoidable truth sinks in. _No matter what I said or did. He's trying to get a rise out of me, in any way that will hurt the most._

_I am so sorry, Ma. I should have spent more time in your garden._

He pictures his mother's frail form in the Spinner's End kitchen, the one that had brightened up with wizarding plants and gadgets once Father passed. She didn't peel the vegetables by hand anymore, and the dishes were washed by magic. She did enjoy gardening even more once she moved out to the country for some peace and quiet in her old age. His Hogwarts salary and her bargaining skills were put to good use getting her that utter wreck of a cottage near Cardiff. He'd hoped...

No, it was futile to have ever hoped to see her again. Any rational mind could reason that his last memory of her would be of a pale, grieving woman in the audience gathered for his sentencing. How long has it been since that day? A year? More? _What is the date on the paper?_ He squints, trying to make out the month, at least. That too is denied to him: the knowledge of a date marking his mother's funeral.

He sulks back into his corner like a wounded beast, sinks into his crumpled blanket in the shadows and waits, counts out breaths, measures out the silence. It's no use.

Nothing is of use anymore.

Outside there is a chorus of laughter. At his expense, sadistic fucks.

He doesn't know how much time passes until he moves. His scar twinges and pulls, like an alien mass under the skin of his neck and shoulder. It does that when it's about to rain. Does it matter if it will rain? Snape won't ever be outside to see it. His only relationship with his surroundings is the ache in his bones from sleeping on the hard floors and breathing the foul air in this godforsaken tower. He might as well stop moving, stop processing, stop existing. Retreat far, far away, into his visions of the Cokeworth summers of his childhood, when Ma's shrill voice still sounded loud and clear calling young Severus home for dinner.

He's no longer that child. Just as she is, apparently, no longer on this earth. It may be for the best that he was not there to witness her last moments: he has been nothing but a disappointment.

Days must be passing by if he could count the instances the food bowl is replaced by another fresh one. Sometimes he doesn't bother, but occasionally he drags himself over to swallow food, an instinct as primitive as breathing, as rasping out 'X-Y-five-five-one-seven' before meals and during nightly checks, as animalistic as gulping down rust-tasting water from the trickling stream in the corner. He's not human, he's a beast, worthy only of caging. (There are no men left here to die.) He's a creature among his equals, exactly where he belongs, and still, he fights for survival despite all odds. _Such an ironic thing it is, living. Those of us who deserve it the least still grind their teeth to dust to go down fighting. And those who deserve to live free... well, they are long gone from this world._

To Snape's surprise, a mug of something lukewarm and sour-smelling is set down through the wards and the cage bars. The plate smells of meat. It must be another Sunday.

A creak of the door and one lonely set of footsteps follows, unexpectedly, between the usual rounds of the guards. Not a guard, then. Snape thinks slowly through his stupor and forces his eyes open. _Potter. Here. It must be Potter._

"Hi! I'm so sorry about last week, I had a... project to take care of. Wait... Snape, what's wrong? Are you ill? Guards!"

The guards are the last thing Snape needs right now. "Don't bother."

"Snape? Fuck. We've got to get you out of here. Come on, stay with me." Potter's eyes widen as Snape turns over, faces the man. Stay where? Here? Might as well. It's where Snape belongs. Even if by some miracle Snape is released, the world he'll face will never be the same. Potter's face twists in a grimace which looks like genuine concern. "Talk to me!"

 _What is there to say?_ "My mother. How did she..." He ponders adding 'Eileen Prince from Cardiff' but Mum never forgot an act of kindness toward her kin, and Potter surely was subjected to a multitude of her homemade gifts for trying to help shorten Snape's sentence. "Was it quick?" The words sound so dull and plain, grating against Snape's ears. _Mum deserves better words, far better to mark the end of her life._ She had a bad heart and a few aches and pains. Snape watched her age, but her hands were still agile enough to weed the garden and her body - spry enough to tend to the apple trees in the summer. 

"Huh? Was what quick? It was, I reckon..."

The granite chill reaches through Snape's very core at that point, seeping into his bones and taking hold until it feels he's encased in a block of solid ice. Numb and still.

"She didn't have much time to talk. Yeah, I know! So unlike her. But I still have her apple jam from a few weeks back. She insists on owling me the fresh batch now and then. Still delicious... Er. If that's what you mean. Or... Snape?" Potter squints, coming closer and pressing his face against the cell bars. "What's wrong? Are you..." 

Somewhere, somehow, a blissful existence that can't possibly be true insists on intruding on Snape's reality. It's preposterous. Insane! A mockery of Snape's life. But what if... What. Fucking. _If_.

Snape lets out a breath that feels like the entire life is seeping out of him. Faster than he ever expected himself capable of moving, he lifts himself up and lunges to the threshold of his allowed existence, fingers clutching the bars.

"Wait... She's... what did they tell you?"

Snape lifts his head, meeting Potter's eye. "Potter! This is important. Did you see last Sunday's Prophet?"

_It's not hope. Snape doesn't allow himself to hope. Not yet._

"Yeah, what do you need to see? I can probably - Accio... wait, crap, they've got my wand. Wait up. Rogers! Waterfield! Have you got the old papers?"

A creak of worn boots, as familiar and imposing as only the guard’s boot soles can be, intensifies, coming closer and closer. "Wot, Harry? Oh," an uneasy chuckle resonates from the oaf, "A paper. Of _course_."

"Auror Rogers." A steely tone so unlike Potter's casual rambling overtakes the conversation. "What do you mean by 'of course'?" 

"Oh, nothing much. Don't tell me he's snivelling about that still. Didn't think he'd take it this bad. None of us did."

Snape had never seen Potter grow so sombre, so tall, so quickly. How anyone so small can be so imposing is beyond his comprehension. "What _precisely_ did you tell him?"

"Er. It was a harmless joke, it was. Practically a rite of passage on everyone's first round, to get a rise out of 'em. Used to let the Dementors into the cell, now it's no fun, gotta get creative... With the obituaries."

"The _obituaries_ , how? Well!"

"Yeah, you know how it goes. Drop a family name. A bit of doubt. Watch them squirm for an hour..."

"An hour." Potter's eyes are dark and menacing and Snape swears he can feel a trickle of electricity in the air, some residual magic despite the dampening of the wards. "Actually, I don't know what you mean. As you recall, my _mother_ has been dead for as long as I remember. Is this what you told him? Is it?"

Snape lets out a cautious breath. _Rogers lied to me._ _Mum's alive. Alive! Tending to her little garden in Cardiff, probably coming to dust the books at the terraced house in Cokeworth every other week, stubborn old crow! She'll settle in for a cuppa and some afternoon gossip with the neighbour and swoop out, her lacy skirts charmed not to catch onto the stray nail at the floorboards by the front door. The tapping of her shoes against the cobbles will grow quieter, turn to the rustling of the dry leaves, until she comes to a complete stop and Apparates from the river. She'll plan to make jam that evening, the way she always does these days..._

 _Mum's_ alive _._

His world turns upside down and settles, accepting the truth at last, no matter how good and improbable it might seem: an orphan would not lie to him. Not about this.

The rage comes, futile and potent. It's fortunate that Rogers now cowers out of sight, as Potter advances on him into the darkness of the corridor. 

"Potter?" 

_Don't do anything stupid, I beg you, boy. No matter how satisfying it might feel._ No matter how much it would please the part of Snape that enjoys the feel of bottled poison on his palm, the drip of acid into his phials, and the crunch of dry human bone powdered to dust.

"You will march to the Warden's office right now. And you will confess, admitting to everything..."

A brief snort, and then a gasp. Snape wonders what exactly Potter did to elicit that response. "- you will name your peers who put you up to this and you will describe in detail what kind of emotional torture you're putting these prisoners through and for how long this has been going on! And you _will_ accept punishment."

"Punishment? Ha! Where have you been? Us guards all get free rein. We can't be any worse than Dementors, these murdering fuckers have it easy these days, they do!"

"Worse than Dementors? Merlin, just listen to yourself! Is that what you're aiming for, huh? For fuck's sake, they've been judged and they're serving their time. They've been left in your care!"

"Ha. Fine! I'll go to the Warden, now, if that's what you want. Not that it'll do any good. You haven't been through an Azkaban assignment yet, have you?" A huff of laughter echoes through the stone ceilings. "You haven't. It's a whole different game watching the scum squirm at you from their cells. You'll find out for yourself soon enough once you're here for your first round. When is it anyway? After Halloween, right?"

There's only silence, and then the sound of a scuffle, as if someone is shoved through the metal door with a distinctive slam of a human skull hitting the metal and an echoing _ow_. "I hope I never will."

Snape wonders if Potter has done something as stupid as quitting the Aurors. If so, he cannot blame the man, but he will miss their Sunday encounters. A civilian will have far more trouble getting into Azkaban, as opposed to a vetted Ministry official. Perhaps it's all just Gryffindor bluff. It has to be.

And yet, on that day, the idea of hope is planted. For one night, Snape sleeps easily. For what may well be the first time in decades, nothing is impossible. For a moment, he is worthy of someone speaking on his behalf, to defend his interests and his well-being.

* * *

It's a beginning, in a way. The first time Snape asked and was heard.

Potter returns every Sunday after that, updating Snape on the news of his mum, sometimes reading a note from Minerva or Poppy. As every meeting begins, Potter and Snape snipe at each other across the bars in grumbled tones - fighting is an old habit and something that wakes Snape's mind from its stupor of being stuck in a small, sunless space, but toward the end of Potter's visits, more often than not, a mutually agreed-upon peace settles.

After Potter leaves, Snape touches the iron bar where Potter's hand rested and finds the warmth there. It's tangible proof that he is not alone, that Potter is not a figment of Snape's imagination.

Potter is real, he tells himself. Potter is definitely real. The imbecile is far too infuriating to be anything else. And yet, in between Potter's trips, so many things seem imaginary.

Weeks turn into months but then, there's a whirlwind of activity as, one day, following the cue of the guard's boots and the abrupt knock on the bars of his cell, Snape states his number but no meal is given to him. Instead, he is taken up, up, up, to the very top of the storm-ravaged tower, a flat and foggy space coated with icy slush in the aftermath of a rainstorm, until he's led to the very edge of it, and for one moment he wonders whether he'll be pushed off that ledge to fall to his death, but then, his chains are twisted, made lighter, allowing for some freedom of movement. So there's magic here, atop the tower, there're spells, at least for those who hold him here. It means they're free to cause him pain in so many magical ways. Why wouldn't they try it? Is that why he's been taken here? He braces himself for just that - physical pain and weeks of recovery from whatever comes next. 

One of his jailors holds out a bag and in it is what looks like all Snape's old belongings. Clothes. No wand. Their demeanour is not hostile. Snape doesn't remember the man's face. Certainly not the sadistic bastards he encountered all too often.

Well then. He takes in a breath of salty air and bides his time. Directs his unbound attention outwards, past the structure they stand on. Up and out.

Snape cannot fathom the expanse of the stormy skies stretching over his head. It's been so long, he's holding onto every second and every breath, taking it all in, the vastness of it, the glory. For a brief second, the skies lighten with sunlight, before dimming again, and he squints at it and wonders whether it'll be the last glimpse of the sun he sees for years to come. He cherishes even that brief glimpse. He stalls, unfolding his old black cloak and allowing it to settle over his shoulders. It's so large and hangs off him like he's a pasty youth again, in his first year as a teacher, distancing himself from his former Housemates with his robes and aloof demeanour.

"Oi, what did Wizengamot want with him?"

"Dunno, just procedure, I reckon. Who knows what they're thinking. More work for us."

"Hmph. Your turn to bring one in. Hey, Smith. Whiskey and cigars tonight, at my place?"

"Ogden's. None of that fancy Muggle swill. Bleargh."

"Suit yourself. Oh, and tell Trudy hello from me if you see her, all right?"

"You've been at it since last year and I doubt she even remembers your name. Just give up, man."

"Come on, one more time. For the old times' sake."

"All right, all right."

And just like that, Snape's elbow is twisted, and he is pulled into the whirlwind of Side Along Apparation.

It's Potter's face Snape sees first, in the darkly lit Ministry room not filled even halfway. His mother stands next to Potter and Snape can't take his eyes off her. Of them both.

 _It's a dream. It must be. This is not real._ His heartbeat picks up at the thought of hearing his mother's voice again, of being in the same room with her. If it's a dream, it's a splendid one.

He ignores half of the words spoken by the judge, but he does catch today's date. Apparently it is September the third, Autumn of 2000, two o'clock in the afternoon. The verdict states that Snape is a free man and that cannot possibly be true, in none of the universes with even a modicum of justice or luck had Snape imagined such an outcome. He goes along with this glorious delusion, even as he hugs his mother, even as Potter, with a congratulatory yelp, lunges at him, pulls him into an impossibly tight hug for someone so scrawny, and claps him on the shoulder. The smell of Potter's cologne lingers on the collar of Snape's cloak, a drastic contrast to the stagnant, stale reek of Azkaban cells that oozed into Snape's every pore, every hair. Staggering, he takes his first conscious step unchained, toward freedom, and it's as if he's sleepwalking through life.

It's impossible. Everything is a hurricane after that. The sight of Spinner's End. The view of his mother's garden near Cardiff.

He hugs his robes to himself and stares up at the night sky. He shrugs away from any touch. It's unbearable to be touched and to know that this momentary peace can be taken away any second once his meditative state is broken up by the guards' banging on the cell bars.

This isn't real. It can't be. He won't allow it to be.

"How is he," Potter asks on his third visit.

"Same," his mother huffs. "He's found a new walking path around the garden, for what it's worth. What are you here for, young man? Publicity? Charity. You really have done enough for us."

"I'm here for him."

"Are you now?"

"Whatever he needs, Mrs Snape."

"Well, I suppose he could use a friend. Go on."

Snape sits within the apple garden of his dreams. There might be the noise of the tires against tarmac in the distance — Muggles heading to Cardiff. Although none of it feels real, he might as well make it last. He is still getting used to daily encounters that do not bring pain: a glimpse of sunlight through the window, the pristine shine of a clean bathtub, the cotton scent of freshly laundered sheets, the warmth of the fireplace, the weight of his wand in his hand, a shaving spell that leaves him with his jaw smooth and bare... the newness of it all is overwhelming. Above all, it's the voices that break the surrounding silence, that are staggering in their magnitude. He is not alone. Not anymore. He is surrounded by human faces, human voices. Words in the air. Whispers. Movements. He is seen. People see him. People know him. People say his name.

Snape. Severus. No longer XY-5517. The sigils are faded now, covered up, just as the scar, by the stiff collar of his suit.

"Mrs Snape, have you ever considered a change of pace? For him, I mean. Just a few days."

"What are you on, lad, I've taken him to Cokeworth already. If his blasted library can't zap him out of it, what do you think you -"

"No, I mean, something new. Out of the ordinary."

"New? Have you _met_ my son?"

"Well, I've been thinking, maybe London... I've got an old place there, well, it's practically a palace..."

"Humph. Nice to be rich. I want him back in three days."

"You're welcome to stay there as well."

"Oh? And who'll tend to my garden, lad? Muggles? The doxies will decapitate them and dance with their bones for good measure. Don't be ridiculous. Off you go. Maybe your unrepentant cheek will snap some sense into him."

Snape can practically hear the smile in Potter's voice. "You've got it, Mrs Snape. He'll be safe with me, don't you worry."

* * *

Snape ought to be reading the Encyclopaedia of Bat Eyes, volume II, but the book lies open on his lap, a comfortable weight. The worn pages rustle against Snape's fingertips. An inked, animated fruit bat wrinkles its nose and stares back at Snape blearily, awoken by a turned page.

Snape sits with his silence. The candelabra in the Grimmauld Place library is lit, bright and twinkling with fairy lights, alternating between the ornate, glittering candles. The place is kept warm by the twin fireplaces, both alight with crackling flames. Snape's nose detects just a hint of fragrant pine, lending a hint of festivities yet to come, weeks away. 

"May I sit with you?" Potter's footsteps are quiet and cautious as an overgrown kitten might sound, as he descends the staircase, entering the enormous hall filled with heavy bookshelves, far taller than the ones in Snape's carefully selected private library.

Potter's constant presence at Snape's side is suspicious in many ways. "Don't you have anywhere better to be?"

Potter shrugs. "No, actually. I'm good, right here. Have little else to do."

"I would imagine it wouldn't take long for the Ministry's finest officers to come to collect their figurehead."

Potter exhales sharply. "Um, about that. I quit. Last week. Ron did too."

The news is startling enough for Snape to lock eyes with Potter, just to examine him, to ensure some modicum of sanity remains.

"Hell, the look on Robards face when we told him, together! Made it worth it, all of it!"

Potter's eyes are bright, and as green as the thin scatter of pine needles leading from one fireplace to the other. That flash of a smile is the most peaceful thing Snape has seen in a while. "They haven't told the papers yet but I imagine it's just a matter of time. Mrs Weasley is still furious! You should have heard her. Mr Weasley says the memos haven't stopped flying across the Ministry floors all week. Serves them right."

Potter seems unburdened and even joyful, perched over the armchair next to Snape and it makes Snape envy the young man's casual posture, oozing inner peace, relief, and calm. He turns his neck from side to side to relieve some tightness in his shoulders. _Oh, to be young again._

But then there's a more pressing question on Snape's mind. "Why did you put an end to it, if I may ask?"

Potter's lips thin. "What we were doing... it wasn't justice. It was the opposite. I told myself I'd make it better, that I'd try my best to make things OK, but seeing how they treated you? I couldn't see myself wearing the uniform alongside that sick fuck that told you your mum's dead. It's... he got two weeks leave and they wouldn't even consider sacking him." Potter's gaze is resolute. Stern. "I'm so sorry, Snape. I tried."

Snape turns to the young man beside him. It's the closest they've ever been, not separated by the metal bars this time. Not trading barbs across the dimly lit trap of a cell block. Potter's knee is a finger width away from Snape's, and Snape wonders if it's as warm on impact as the trace of Potter's touch over the rusty iron. He pulls back until their knees are further apart.

_Merely trying matters more to Snape than anything else. He can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times a person tried on his behalf._

"I appreciate the effort." Snape reaches out and after much deliberation, sets his hand over Potter's knee, counts out a measure of a second, and withdraws. This is a perfectly acceptable gesture of support. It's Potter's other knee that is bare, showing through the ripped fabric of his jeans. The informal attire is quite a change from official Ministry cloaks and robes. Potter's shirt is an atrociously orange ode to the Chudley Cannons. "Congratulations on your newfound freedom. Have you considered your next career move?"

Potter grins. "Anything but the Magical Law Enforcement, that's for sure. I'll find something. One day. And so will Ron. Don't you worry."

Potter's lower lip is bitten pink, his hair the usual mess, the calluses on his fingers and the sleek curve of his thigh betray his rekindled interest in his broom. 

Snape pictures Potter high in the air, soaring, and the image makes him jealous with pure joy, enough to consider asking Potter for a spare broom to borrow, or even (utter madness!) for Potter's company up in the air as they fly. And with that image, like the first ray of sun after the storm, Snape bids farewell to the shield of platonic attraction toward his childhood friend and accepts what young Severus once considered his inner perversion, fit only to be locked away and concealed at all costs. 

Maybe, just maybe, this is all a harmless dream to be savoured for its quiet happiness. After all, any joy is fleeting and hard to find, as Snape knows better than anyone by now.

"Potter, may I -" Snape is still arguing with himself whether to ask if he could borrow a broom, but then Potter interrupts with something sudden and startling.

"Call me Harry." Potter's lips curl in something like a dare as he looks at Snape. His stare is warm. "I insist."

The request erases all thought of something as shallow as broomsticks from Snape as the poignancy of the present moment takes its hold over him. He's grounded in a cushioned seat by a crackling fire, weighted by the comfort of his woollen cloak and layers of cotton, surrounded by the collective treasure of grimoires hoarded by centuries of Blacks, and is aware of his feet planted steady on the floor, of his hands resting over the closed book. He is as far from airborne as he can get, but why does his heartbeat pick up as if he's soaring, rushing toward the storm clouds, as he once did, when his magic was at its peak.

"Harry," Snape says. The sound is a playful rumble bubbling its way up to his lips. Like the approaching cadence of Harry's footsteps bounding up the staircase, like the purr of a cat, like the creak of the windowsill flung open against the sun, a door swung wide open to welcome a stranger in.

_So be it._

* * *

"You know, Severus, I am perplexed," his mother declares over a cup of tea, after they both worked side by side clearing two days' worth of fallen leaves from the garden. "The Prophet broke the news of the Weasley girl's recent engagement to the Longbottom lad just last week, and yet..."

"What about it?"

"Nothing. I'm just surprised your 'Harry' -" her eyebrow lifts slightly at the name, "isn't more upset than that. I was under the impression of their deep and intimate... commitment. And yet, you should see his eyes light up when he's around you lately."

"Ma!" Snape hmphs and pointedly sips his Earl Grey, leaving the silence to do its job of showing his sheer indignation at the sound of 'your Harry' for him. "Gossiping doesn't suit you."

His mother spoons out the fresh jam and spreads it on toast, with a peculiar twist to her smile. "Relax. I am merely impressed. Why the last time I saw that look, it was Sara Cooper across the road, blushing and trying not to stare at Will Wilson's backside. Lo-and-behold, she's Mrs Wilson now, with their second baby on the way. The nicest neighbours anyone could wish for! A bit simple, but pleasant."

Snape takes several pointedly silent seconds to core a fresh apple from the bucket and bite into the apple slice. "You're not to bother Harry with your nonsense. I forbid it. The young man is confused enough."

 _And so am I,_ his mind suggests. Across the table, his mother smiles around her mouthful of toast, not unlike a sated cat soaking up the last of the late-season sunshine. "Certainly. I just wonder, what do you like most, Harry or the idea of him liking you despite all those faults you still keep punishing yourself for daily."

Snape growls into his teacup and puts on the facade of his best, sated smile. "Do I look that much of a masochist to you, Mother?"

She arches her brow and has the audacity to match his smile with one of her own. "That's settled then, isn't it? Crumpet?"

Her remark preys on Snape's mind for a long time, prompting the worry of being pulled into the hurricane of fame and power and giving up control over to the hands of yet another Master.

He's done serving the whims of the most powerful and power-hungry. He's his own man now, and no matter what that freedom brings, he cannot hand the reins of his life to anyone else ever again. Even his mother.

He will not linger in her garden tonight.

* * *

A week before Snape plans to move back to the terraced house in Cokeworth (despite Ma's urging to stay for another week or two), he has a visitor. One early afternoon, while Mother tends to her herbs on the far side of the garden, Harry arrives through the off-the-path Apparation point marked by the wide circle of moss-green stepping stones. He is dressed for the warmth of May rather than a late-autumn afternoon, prancing over the clumps of weeds and bearing two newly polished brooms tucked under his arm. As he approaches, he flashes Snape a contagious grin and a one-word dare. "Interested?"

"What precisely might I be interested in?" Snape eyes the tight Muggle trousers, the unbuttoned collar showing skin. Harry's sleeves are rolled up. His light wool jumper, unworn, spills out of his back pocket. His shirt is far too short, the edge of it peeking out from under the ornately woven belt.

The brat flashes Snape a grin. "Race you to the canal and back. If I win, you're buying me a drink. If you win, same. I figure we’ve both earned it."

"To clarify the terms," Snape extends his hand for the broom and instead of requesting one of Harry's, summons his mother's old Cleansweep. He knows it best, and he's not above taking every advantage possible in a race. "To the old bridge. _And when_ I win, I expect a bottle of an Elf-made wine. I trust you to select a decent vintage."

There's a sparkle in Harry's eyes as he mounts, hovering a few feet up. 

"One..." Snape counts. "Two..." And then he takes off without further warning. Serves the brat right for not paying attention, if he is too distracted to keep an eye on Snape's next move.

Oh, but what a pleasant day it is to be airborne. The afternoon sun hangs lazily over the horizon, spilling late autumn warmth over the fields. The wind hits Snape's face, ruffles his collar until the wild flapping of it, like a sparrow's wing, is felt even against the surface of his scar. The sunlight cascading out in rays from under the clouds makes him squint, as he swoops down and flies low along the narrow road unoccupied by any traffic.

Not that Muggles ever notice much, but Snape casts a quick spell to be sure they aren't seen. 

By his side, then suddenly rushing over his head, Harry whoops and shouts out his excitement against the wind and the sky. Snape keeps his eye on the goal and lets Harry waste time and effort climbing those currents, as he directs the tip of his broomstick toward the water's edge where the crumbling bridge curves. They pass the stretch of treetops as a golden blur, their gnarly branches stretching upwards, just below his boots, and then continue on through the expanse of surrounding farmland long past harvest time, a striped greying plane with the moist dirt and dry husks exposed to the sun and their twin shadows moving fast through it.

It's toward the end of it that Snape allows the brat to advance ahead and, far above him, Harry leans into the current, slim and sleek, as intent as a kingfisher seeking its dinner, so sure in his victory, and then, at the end of Harry's dizzying dive, Snape swoops upward like a hawk from the nearby aspens, and disrupts the man's descent until they collide, shoulder to shoulder, their brooms locked like a pair of compasses, powered by a fit of fury, tossed away by a hapless navigator into a blue void. Harry's elbow digs into Snape's shoulder, his narrow frame pushing to steer Snape away from the goal of the nearing bridge, and they're almost there. So Snape does something unlikely, something quick and daring and unpredictable. He lifts his arm and allows the wrestling brat to occupy the space under his flapping sleeve, maintaining that one-armed hold long enough for Harry to go stiff with surprise. Snape turns then, trusting Harry to steer them from wrecking into the bridge, and reaches with his other arm until it too rests on Harry's wiry frame. He can feel the man inhale bubbling laughter. He can feel his ribs expanding with the next breath, and like a snake curling around a sun-warmed rock, he cannot resist the heat of Harry's body under his fingertips, cannot stop himself from hoarding Harry's joy. 

They've never embraced before. Snape has never embraced anyone, not like this. Never like this.

Once their free spin about a dozen feet above the canal slows and comes to a calm halt, it's clear to Snape from a brief glance down past Harry's knees, that they've both flown far over the bridge in their eagerness to reach it.

In his arms, with a casual knee thrown over Snape's thigh and no sign of changing their position, Harry laughs loud enough to spook the wildfowl from their feeding spots. Two herons take off from the shore and a flock of lost ducks gathers close under the bridge for safety. Sparrows scatter from the bushes. " _We_ won!" Harry declares decisively, his hand on Snape's chest, his beaming smile right there, against the sunlight, his windblown hair bristling against Snape's cheek. "We really won," he adds, softer, and startles in Snape's hold, as if just now realising how close they both are to one another. No iron bars, no traded barbs, in the space between them. Just the proximity of a kindred spirit. Just the sunlight caught in Harry's hair. Just his frantic breathing. His laughter. His presence. His entire self, trusting enough to stay in Snape's arms. "You're free!"

"Hmph, it took you long enough to notice," Snape huffs his amusement, and then, before the brat throws back an indignant response, slides his hand over the flushed cheek and leans forward toward the green of that stare, toward the pink of Harry's parted lips, and the warmth of his embrace. They kiss then, the two of them, hovering over the roaring span of water. Their broom tips remain crossed, their arms are around each other. Harry's lips are gentle, parting under Snape's urging, and although winter is so very near, in the water, in the air, in the fading sun, Snape knows with certainty that with Harry at his side he will never be cold again.

When he pulls back from the kiss, the sight of a ravished brat in his arms is almost enough to make him come undone. Harry never wore anything more concealing over that obscenely tight shirt of his. Snape wants it off, he wants to push it upwards and bury his face in Harry's flushed skin and never come up for air. He wants to devour the joyful brat, every gasp and every instance of belly-deep laughter and every flash of a grin, study the effect until he can brew and bottle and stopper it and yet there's a reason one can only come close to synthesising love, or trust, or affection. Only the genuine source must do. 

Harry bloody Potter, no substitute required.

When they land, they settle on the bank by the water. Harry plants his boots into the dewy grass and runs his hands through the fallen gold underneath the canopy of willows and ash tree branches along the shoreline. Snape can't resist levitating a handful, just to upend it over Harry's windblown mop of hair. A sliver of gold settles in Harry's fringe, an epaulette lands and clings to his shoulder, an improvement over any official uniform he might've donned in the past.

Snape joins Harry at the edge of the canal and offers a steady shoulder for the man to rest against. Wildfowl flocks navigate the waters of the opposite shore, charting dark, spreading stripes of clear water through the solid gold of the fallen, floating leaves. The air around the canal is filled with the scent of their million deaths, fragrant and earthy. A cycle of letting go before the rebirth takes place once again.

Never, even in his wildest flights of imagination, letting his mind soar free inside a crammed, frozen granite cell, did Snape imagine this moment would await him one day. The knowledge that it exists for the two of them, here and now, and it is real, despite all the impossibility, makes it all the sweeter still.

"Talk to me," Harry murmurs into Snape's shoulder, his hand resting against Snape's heart. He glances up, eyes as green as the moss on the shaded side of the tree trunks. "Snape?"

Snape allows his lips to twist languidly as he looks down at the man braced against him. It's been a long time since he wanted nothing at all, not because he's given up, but because he is completely and utterly satisfied with what he has already. "It's high time you called me Severus, don't you agree?"

Harry smiles, tender and almost shy, his glasses askew, and his lips teased into redness by Snape's efforts. (Debauchery suits the brat well.) "You'd've bit my head off if I tried it first. Had to let you ask."

"If you must know -"  
  


"Severus."

"... as I was saying -"

" _Severus_." It sounds like a spell on Harry's tongue, treasured and cautious. Harry lifts his head off Snape's shoulder, his fingers run through Snape's hair, pushing it back off his jaw. "Go on."

At first, Snape had planned to describe in all manner of detail the creative substitutes for the decapitation of such primitive nature, but then any sarcasm Snape had been initially prepared to throw in Harry's direction fizzles out and dies, like a lonely leaf caught by the current of the stream and pulled under into its depth.

The sun kisses the tips of the aspens in the distance and the clouds burn orange before they head back to Snape's mother's garden. Snape strategically allows Harry to fly ahead of him just so he can appreciate the view.

* * *

Harry does find a decent vintage (he must've had help from someone, likely Granger): he presents Snape with the bottle of the Elf-made wine as he ushers Snape in through the main entrance of the Grimmauld Place and in the general direction of the dining room. Snape uncorks it with a spell and lets it aerate while he watches Harry put his last touches over what looks like homemade pasta and a bowl of custard for dessert. 

With the wine bottle still mostly full after dinner but left behind in the living room, they end up making out on the nearby sofa until the leather starts creaking under their weight. The brat's wriggling prompts shock and dismay of the nearby portraits yawning themselves awake and then stating their opinion in startled gasps coupled with a twisted moustache or a flash of clutched family pearls. Snape relishes the thought of multiple generations of Blacks, those utter snobs, subjected to an eyeful of genuine joy, not a fulfilment of a contract or a personal sacrifice for the sake of furthering the Black line. He hugs Harry tighter just for that, as the brat straddles his lap, and traces the muscles down Harry's back, his fingertips gliding along his spine and settling over his backside. _I bet they were never in love with anyone but their status and titles in their entire lifetime. Serves them right._

"Mmf," Harry says. Snape is happy to keep his mouth occupied for as long as possible. A proper kiss is not a thing to be rushed. Harry's shirt is half-unbuttoned, his left shoulder - bare. Snape traces the line across the tip of his collarbone to his nipple and that elicits a gasp. _Good._

If Harry, the eager flirt, keeps strolling about like he owns the place... He is certainly the proper owner but he never looks the part, always in his practically obscene Muggle attire which is a glorious challenge to the halls and the mores of an ancient wizarding house, and there ought to be some consequences for those actions! Why, if the lad's skintight jeans get any tighter and his swagger any more teasing, the only acceptable outcome is a round of good old-fashioned buggery over the main staircase right under that gigantic candelabra. And if that thought should happen to dominate Snape's dreams more often, instead of an occasional nightmare, well that would be an acceptable price to pay for a just turn of events. Snape can't help but visualise Harry's liberated, writhing torso splayed over the manticore skin rug in full view of every painted prude of the House of Black. (Wouldn't that be a sight for sore eyes and the best view any of those sorry sods had in ages?)

It certainly is true for Snape! Harry is quite a vision.

"When did you first know?" Harry asks him, straddling Snape's lap with such vigour and joy, it's as if he's atop a broom, soaring across the sunlit sky, not entangled in an ill-advised affair with a branded prisoner. "About this, I mean. Us."

 _When did I_ not _know? A lifetime ago. Before Azkaban._ A man to visit Snape's enforced solitude and break up the monotony of his days was always a need, a craving. How could Snape not reach for pure life and vigour, bursting into the corridor just outside his cell now and then? He craved that glimpse of freedom as a dying man in the desert craves water.

Snape tries to express his gratitude by worshipping Harry's body the best way he knows how, gliding his fingers over bare skin, freeing more of it from being concealed by clothing, trailing kisses down Harry's shoulder. Harry's eyes burn green and lush, like a scorching summer's day when Snape looks up. "When I was in Azkaban, I was not living. When you came to visit me, you were the embodiment of warmth and life, even from a distance. In a place I was in, that was... everything." He tightens his fingers around Harry's hand, suddenly struck by the shared body warmth, by the lack of iron or granite or even cloth between them. Such proximity, impossible yet undeniably real. " _Everything_."

Snape buries his face in the flushed skin of Harry's torso and resolves to do his damnedest to show the man joy as he witnesses and catalogues his desire, unselfconscious and shared. The reddened flesh, the parted legs and parted lips, the abrupt moan on the exhale and the impatient twitch of his hips against Snape's gaze. Harry's jeans cling to his hips even with flies undone, even with Snape's mouth tender over Harry's tented underwear. Snape slides down until he's reclining back into the pillows. Harry's hands are over Snape's shoulders, his hold suddenly grows frantic. Snape clutches at the fabric of Harry's thighs as he dips his head down and nuzzles the leaking head of Harry's cock. He inhales the musky arousal and can almost taste it on his tongue. _Let me show you just how much you've given me. Let me share pleasure as only the living can._ His breathing is shallow to match Harry's. He can feel the rush of blood to his head, the warmth in his veins, the tingling over his skin. They're alive, he and Harry, right here and right now, in this moment in time, together, and nothing will ever undo such a wonder.

"Your turn. When did you," Snape takes the time to free Harry's cock of the underwear and pauses to breathe over the flesh that springs free, "First know you wanted... this. Us."

There's a small sound escaping Harry's lips and a "Not fair," that follows.

"Hmm?" Snape prompts.

"Hogwarts, all right."

A rush of guilt warms Snape's cheeks at the thought of the young brat ogling him in the school's halls, in the classroom. At the very thought that he'd served as someone's sexual awakening... was present in his dreams and his imagination.

"I did a lot of... thinking — oi, don't look at me like that! — after I'd realised just whom my Potions book belonged to. That handwriting. Should've known sooner."

"So what you're saying..." Snape pauses and uses the pause wisely to take Harry in hand and taste the glistening tip of a cock pointed at him.

"Ahh!" Such a vivid display of conflicted distraction at hand the man makes, especially with such simple measures. He's been asked once whether he likes Harry or the thought of Harry liking him back despite all the flaws... well then, the jury is still out on that one, but Snape is certain he _loves_ this. The careful control wielded over Harry's pleasure. The power at his fingertips, and the freedom to grant someone the peace of trusting surrender.

"Pay attention, Harry. It certainly sounds like you're attracted to my penmanship. Anything else?"

Harry beams, unselfconscious and about as forward as his erection at Snape's lips. "All of you. The entire bloody package, you glorious bastard."

"Language," Snape chides, giving Harry's cock a tight, thorough stroke. 

"Fuck! Severus."

Snape licks his lips, pleased, and answers with the obvious action rather than any words, curving his lips around his mouthful, tasting salt and musk and the mouth-watering sensation of being in control of someone's intimate pleasure and granting release at long last.

It manifests in the form of Harry's fingers pressed into his scalp, around his ears, in the weight and thickness of a cock in his mouth, in the restraint of Harry's shallow, needy thrusts, in Harry's cry ( _oh fuck, oh, oh, OH!_ ), as he comes undone at last, in several hot spurts against Snape's lips and tongue.

It's only later, when Harry's fingers glide over Snape's collar, unfastening the first clasp, parting fabric and gliding over skin, that self-conscious doubt sends Snape's heart racing. What if he doesn't measure up to whatever expectations linger in the air between them? What if revealing himself to the world, every mark and scar on his branded skin, every imperfection and each regret, be the end of him, or worse, the end of _them_ , right there and then.

His arms shake with tension, and his spine might as well be a spike of iron embedded deep into a granite wall, as he slips out of his robes, aided by an already-naked Harry. Out of the corner of his vision, he notices his outer robe fanned out over the creaky leather of the sofa, black on black, a matte spill over the polished, shiny surface dotted with an occasional metal stud. Like a timid stray, he turns his head into every warm, careful caress.

It's oh so new. So unfamiliar that all he can do is hold still and allow the rush of desire kindled by another's touch and attention. He marvels at the sensation of someone else's skin against his own, the roughness of a callus as Harry's palm glides along his forearm, the moisture and heat of an exhaled breath at his clavicle, the tickle of Harry's fringe against his ribs, the press of Harry's knee against his, nudging his legs open, the weight of a youthful body, fit and attractive and here, despite it all, with Snape, in Snape's hold, smiling down at him, sharing something intimate and heart-stopping with no regret.

 _How is this real? Surely, it's impossible._ It's the most wondrous dream. Any moment now he'll wake up alone in a cell on a granite floor to the dimness of the oil lamps and the stale prison air...

And yet he is wide awake already and he's far from alone. Harry's still here with him. Snape sighs and lets Harry's unhurried touch guide him back to reality. He counts the items peeled off, letting go of them like discarded pieces of armour, no longer required to stay alive. 

His shirt is a splash of silvery-white against the red-striped pile, as festive as the flags at a Quidditch match — Harry's things. Next, with a metallic clang, his belt has been unbuckled and it curls on the floor like snakeskin, his trousers pool around his knees, and then the unrepentant brat leans forward and whispers a few words against his thigh, stirring his body hair and his cock all at once. "If I'm rubbish at it, you'll tell me, right?"

 _What?_ "I don't understand." Snape reaches out and pushes Harry's fringe off his face, collects his glasses and sets them aside. Sure enough, the green gaze no longer hiding behind the fogged-up lenses is timid, uncertain, although the sudden grip on Snape's cock that follows is anything but.

"I haven't done this before, but I want to." Snape can't take his eyes off Harry's kiss-swollen mouth, a dark stripe over the flushed face, as Harry's hair falls over his eyes. They lock stares and Snape is lost to the vision of the man poised, lips parted, over the tip of Snape's cock. "A lot."

It takes every ounce of his remaining, ragged self-control for Snape to keep himself from thrusting into that hot, steady hold, to let Harry set the pace instead and what a pace it is! An impossibly slow descent toward breathless pleasure.

"So far you've been exceptional." It's the truth.

"You think so, hm? Well then," Harry gives him a lopsided grin, letting go of his mouthful and the sudden loss of wet heat over the head of his cock does make Snape gasp and thrust upward, his self-control be damned. "Wait 'til the best part though." Harry pauses and licks his lips for good measure. "It's coming."

Snape isn't sure whether to reward such a terrible joke with a deliberate groan or show the brat exactly what he's missing when it comes to verbal sparring. He opts for winding his fingers through the soft strands over Harry's ears and nudging Harry's head down to put that mouth to good use. It's rather convenient that Harry could never resist a well-timed dare!

Oh, but the pressure of Harry's tongue, the slick glide of his lips over Snape's erect cock is a maddening thing! Pleasure drives all focus from Snape's mind and all he knows then, at that moment, is the one point of contact: the series of thrusts, the wet heat over the sensitive head and the electrifying touch. As Snape fights to keep his eyes locked with Harry, blocking the full view is Harry's hand — a blurry movement from the base to the tip and on and on and on, until Snape can no longer focus on what he sees, as arousing as the sight is. His breathing is ragged and his knees are spread wide apart to accommodate Harry's slender form. His hands are fisted around the fabric of his own discarded robe, and he isn't sure whether the moan resonating in his ears came from Harry or from his own lips.

 _So close!_ He warns Harry with a groan, with a nudge at his chin and an exhaled "now," and Harry's mouth, instead of pulling back, unexpectedly descends slick and hot and perfect, capturing him, suspended in the moment of perfect bliss. He comes undone, with the intensity of the angry skies, exploding at last into a downpour after the long lightning-filled wait for the storm to come to life. As Harry's mouth stills on his cock, Snape can't quite catch his breath at the vision of the man, willing to bring him such pleasure. He lifts his hand and cups Harry's cheek in gratitude. Not just for this moment, but for everything leading up to it.

Harry's unselfconscious grin is its own challenge, as he climbs over Snape's body and settles once more on the sofa at Snape's side.

As Snape's breathing calms and the relaxation turns his limbs heavy and boneless, Harry's stare up at him, even if slightly smug, is one of complete and utter joy. Snape cherishes that flash of serenity, summer-green, before Harry's eyelids grow heavy and Harry's head comes to rest on Snape's shoulder. A murmur resonates against his chest, gentle and rumbling. "Hey, so tomorrow is Sunday." There is a tap of two fingers against Snape's chest, right where his heart keeps on beating in that wild staccato of all overwhelmed living things. "Stay?"

Snape thinks of all the other Sundays marked by Harry's company so far. He wouldn't miss this next Sunday for the world. He runs his hand over the creaky leather of the sofa and pulls his robes to shield Harry from the breeze coming through the doorway. "Here?"

"If you want. Or there's a bed upstairs. A good one." The cheeky limpet wiggles into Snape's hold and hangs on. "You'll like it!"

Snape arches his brow at that emboldened assumption of his tastes for the furniture chosen by some trophy wife in the House of Black. He hopes that the bed he has been so eagerly invited to occupy did not belong to that one Black in particular, but the less said about the mangy cur on a day like this, the better. "I suppose there could be worse things than a Sunday spent in bed." A proper bed. With soft pillows, heavy blankets, and the warmth of Harry's embrace. The easy calm of having nowhere to be because Snape has found his peace settles over them both, undisturbed.

It's only later that the brat's victorious laughter, followed by the "Told you you'd like it," resonates through the upstairs' rooms, and Snape has to resort to swatting Harry's backside in retaliation for having been thrown, unceremoniously onto the softest mattress he's ever encountered.

It's a late Saturday, and it is still new and astounding to notice that all the days of the week have names again in Snape's mind and memories. His internal clock measures out seconds of joy, fast and furious and unrationed. They tick by, until the clock in the hall chimes half-past nine, and through it all Snape captures Harry's mouth in yet another daring, breathless kiss. The world doesn't end because of such an overabundance of happiness, with Snape waking up to a solitary cell. It just keeps on going, as real and as perfect as it gets.

* * *

Snape is roused by the luxurious softness of his smooth, silky sheets, the warmth of Harry's body sprawled over him, and the lazy weight of his limbs. The untameable imp is already stirring, a hint of his eager hardness between their entangled bodies. _Predictable_. 

Despite Harry's boundless energy, Snape, who is still working on restoring both his strength and his magic to their former levels, is content to lie back and observe, as his flesh is fondled in all the fun places, as his skin tingles with the sequence of light touches and his neck is nuzzled by an overly enthusiastic young man.

A patchwork of numbness and oversensitivity along the scar tissue and tattoos that brand his neck becomes obvious through Harry's caress with his lips and then the tip of his tongue. But Snape doesn't mind, it's as if Harry doesn't see them at all, or perhaps he does, and still loves Severus — all of him — anyway, not despite but for all he is. Including the scars, the tattoos, the ugly and the terrible bits alongside the rest. For surviving and succeeding to keep his soul intact against all odds.

With that thought in mind, Severus sighs out his joy and surrenders into the moment of pleasure, experiencing the boundless peace of the mind and the body, the kind he chased after in all his days of sorrow and darkness, retreating into the innermost depths of his thoughts. A craving, a dream, finally granted and held dear. A life no longer lived alone. 

"Mmorning," the teasing brat whispers, his voice still hoarse with sleep.

"Mm." It _is_ a good morning. " _Up_ to no good already?"

"Hmph," Harry wiggles into Severus' hold. "You love it when I'm _up_ to no good."

"It'd be a shame to waste such raw enthusiasm. Shall I help you put it to proper use?"

"Alright. Where do you want me then?"

 _Bottled and stoppered._ Kept safe. Preserved for centuries and deconstructed until Severus knows the proper ingredients, the exact steps to reproduce that genuine, unselfconscious grin. He could study the sight of it for hours on end. Severus smiles into the morning sun and turns into Harry's eager caress. "Right here. Closer," he beckons, sliding his arms around his stubborn, irrepressible lover. _As close as two men can get._ "Yess." 

The warmth between their bodies cocooned under the sheets, the scent of Harry's hair, the brilliance of his smile is everything. With Harry at his side, sharing the bed with him, Severus is reborn, unshackled by his own past.

The moment stretches onward, more permanent and more real than any brand or mark or scar Severus may bear: they are only skin-deep. The joyful reality of life as it unfolds is just what Severus needs to gather all his doubts and self-loathing, all his nightmares and anguish, his paranoia and guilt, his shame and hatred. He deposits them inside the tiny, cramped cell in his mind where all the dark and deadly things dwell, and then purposefully, intentionally ( _Prisoner XY-5517, I hereby sentence you..._ ) leaves the door to that horrid tomb bolted shut.

For Harry's sake, as well as his own, he lets himself be free, at long last.

* * *

We are weaned from our timidity  
In the flush of love's light  
we dare be brave  
And suddenly we see  
that love costs all we are  
and will ever be.  
Yet it is only love  
which sets us free.

_Maya Angelou_

**Author's Note:**

> This work is part of the 2020 Harry Potter Cross Gen Fest. The author will be revealed at the end of August.


End file.
